First, this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author. For example you can easily direct message him on twitter instead of polluting the HN comment thread which should always contain useful and informative comment.
Second. I can read them pretty nicely on my computer. It is clear a lot of work was made to make this website very nice. Your comment is a bit harsh.
Third, you are on HN, you should know how to read the code without being angry.
Judging by the position of my comment in the thread, it is not clear that everyone shares your view of it being merely thread pollution. I wasn't really mad, that comment was a play on this joke, which is fairly well known on the net: http://1389blog.com/pix/im-so-angry-i-made-a-sign.jpg So what should I do, be mr serious and drone on like a broken record about accessibility? Is it so bad that I try to address the point in a whimsical way? If you think that telling someone to make a minor change to their text styles is harsh, read more comments here. It's not uncommon to see someone's entire business model questioned and torn apart in the comments; if the worst complaint is about text color, that's a good day! :)
One thing you said does, in fact, really irritate me: "I can read them pretty nicely on my computer." This is not the standard by which accessibility is judged!! It doesn't matter if you can read fine in 7px grey on gray, that doesn't make it accessible.
I'm not just pulling this stuff out of thin air, by the way. http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html These are widely accepted best practices, and you should follow them if you care about people with abilities different than your own being able to use your site.
Agreed: my comment should not be the top comment; it's just one small critique. I just see this so frequently (low low contrast, hard to read text) as well as other accessibility issues on sites linked from hn that I started griping about it. FWIW I don't just gripe about it, sometimes I actually do something: https://github.com/addyosmani/todomvc/pull/37 :)
In the end I think it's important to remember that even if the content is the best thing in the world, that doesn't mean much if people can't read it. I'm probably just a curmudgeon but I've clicked links to posts where I saw the contrast and size and said "I'm not going to bother reading this. It is too hard and I don't care enough about this article to change my browser settings to correct the designer's mistakes." And many people don't have the skills to do so. Three cheers for agreement! :)
I agree with all the subsequent discussion, but I would add that I disagree that,
"this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author"
Given the site has been posted to a public forum, it's useful, both for the author and for other designers, to get a feel of how the community (read into that what you will) feels about a design, rather than simply one individual's private perception.
I also agree, however, that I personally don't see it as a major issue (I've included this statement to validate my original point - how meta...)
Comments
First, this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author. For example you can easily direct message him on twitter instead of polluting the HN comment thread which should always contain useful and informative comment.
Second. I can read them pretty nicely on my computer. It is clear a lot of work was made to make this website very nice. Your comment is a bit harsh.
Third, you are on HN, you should know how to read the code without being angry.
Judging by the position of my comment in the thread, it is not clear that everyone shares your view of it being merely thread pollution. I wasn't really mad, that comment was a play on this joke, which is fairly well known on the net: http://1389blog.com/pix/im-so-angry-i-made-a-sign.jpg So what should I do, be mr serious and drone on like a broken record about accessibility? Is it so bad that I try to address the point in a whimsical way? If you think that telling someone to make a minor change to their text styles is harsh, read more comments here. It's not uncommon to see someone's entire business model questioned and torn apart in the comments; if the worst complaint is about text color, that's a good day! :)
One thing you said does, in fact, really irritate me: "I can read them pretty nicely on my computer." This is not the standard by which accessibility is judged!! It doesn't matter if you can read fine in 7px grey on gray, that doesn't make it accessible.
I'm not just pulling this stuff out of thin air, by the way. http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html These are widely accepted best practices, and you should follow them if you care about people with abilities different than your own being able to use your site.
It seems you are right. The low color contrast on a small disabled part of this website seems to be the major shared point of view.
Sincerely, it wasn't a personal attack. I am just sad a short comment about the look & feel make the top instead of a comment about the content.
Even if in the end, I tend to agree with you that this color contrast is a design error.
ps: Also, if you visit my website, you will see I am fully aware of accessibility and try to take a good care about it.
Agreed: my comment should not be the top comment; it's just one small critique. I just see this so frequently (low low contrast, hard to read text) as well as other accessibility issues on sites linked from hn that I started griping about it. FWIW I don't just gripe about it, sometimes I actually do something: https://github.com/addyosmani/todomvc/pull/37 :)
In the end I think it's important to remember that even if the content is the best thing in the world, that doesn't mean much if people can't read it. I'm probably just a curmudgeon but I've clicked links to posts where I saw the contrast and size and said "I'm not going to bother reading this. It is too hard and I don't care enough about this article to change my browser settings to correct the designer's mistakes." And many people don't have the skills to do so. Three cheers for agreement! :)
I know exactly this bad feeling when going to a website with great content and terrible design.
I am pretty sure you know about these, but just in case.
To address this problem I used readability from arc90. Now I use a solarized[^1] version of readable[^2].
Cheers :)
[^1]: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized [^2]: http://goo.gl/jISPf => will go to http://readable.tastefulwords.com/ with solarized theme (my tiny contribution).
I agree with all the subsequent discussion, but I would add that I disagree that,
"this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author"
Given the site has been posted to a public forum, it's useful, both for the author and for other designers, to get a feel of how the community (read into that what you will) feels about a design, rather than simply one individual's private perception.
I also agree, however, that I personally don't see it as a major issue (I've included this statement to validate my original point - how meta...)